Elderly woman suffers ‘disgusting’ sexual attack

The sexual assault of a frail senior in her Sydney home last winter is “disgusting and reprehensible,” Judge Jean Whalen said in a written sentencing decision released Wednesday.

Christopher Charles French, 24, earlier pleaded guilty to break and enter and sexual assault. French was sentenced in October in Sydney provincial court.

Whalen described the March 8 sexual assault in her written decision.

The identity of the victim, in her 80s, is protected. She has osteoporosis and is in poor health with failing hearing and eyesight.

Her daughter had moved in with her temporarily before the attack to help out.

The senior, who at the time weighed just 86 pounds, was asleep in her bed when French walked into her bedroom in the wee hours, the decision said. She woke up to find a man on top of her pulling down her panties and pyjamas and tried to fight him off, it said.

Hearing her mother’s screams, the daughter ran into the bedroom and saw a man with his pants pulled down straddling her mother. She managed to push French off and called police.

Because a grandson used to have people over, police started interviewing his friends. One friend told the cops to check into French. He was arrested within 24 hours of the attack.

Soon afterwards, French confessed to police and admitted that he had often thought about sexually assaulting the senior.

“He said he wanted to have, in his words, ‘actual sex with her.’” Whalen wrote.

From previous visits to the home when he was younger, French knew which upstairs bedroom belonged to his victim.

“Mr. French ruined three lives the night of the attack. Mine, my daughter’s and his own,” the victim wrote in an impact statement to the court.

She went on to say she hopes that French gets the help he needs, but she is also struggling to get her life back.

“I no longer feel safe inside my home where I raised my children. I no longer feel safe in the home in which I lived for over 60 years. I cannot be alone anymore, when I have lived alone for 30 years prior to this attack, very happily and fearless.”

Her daughter has since given up a job in Halifax and moved in with her mother full time. The two women are now planning to move out of the province.

“I can only imagine what (the victim) must feel when she tried to lay her head down at night to go to sleep,” Whalen wrote.

French made a written apology to his victim and to the court. In it, he described the nature of his crime as a “learned behaviour.”

He has a previous criminal history that includes sexual assaults.

The written decision also described him as a troubled youngster who started experimenting with drugs and booze at 14, the same year his mother kicked him out of her home for the first time.

A step-uncle also sexually abused French, the decision said.

French has a Grade 9 education, has never held a job more than two months and has never had a relationship with a woman, it said.

“He has had little sexual experience that is age appropriate and consenting, but maintains a high sexual drive, high sexual output and experiences rapid sexual triggering to a variety of stimuli.”

Tests show that French is a high risk for future violence, including sexual assaults, the decision said.

He has expressed an interest in getting help with substance abuse, his mental health issues and his sexual deviancy, it said.

But Whalen said that is not enough.

“Even if Mr. French is absolutely genuine in his intentions at this stage, it is not clear that he has the capacity to follow through with same. In fact, with his current coping skills, it is unlikely that he could follow through with same over the long term without a return to substance abuse and antisocial choices and actions, unless he were to make a substantial change in skill set, priorities and personality.”

In the end, Whalen followed the Crown’s recommendation and sentenced French to eight years, minus the seven months he had spent in jail since his arrest, which leaves him with a sentence of almost 7 years.

French is also banned for life from owning firearms and his name will be added to a national sexual offenders registry. He was also ordered to provide a DNA sample.